HD with 80GB.

[Rong]

Can I format this HD in FAT 32?
Or must be NTFS?
Why XP only format it with NTFS,no FAT32?
THX. for your help.

 

[Heisenberg]

You could format the drive in either one. However, I would recommend NTFS. It's a much superior file system to FAT32.

 

[ClueLis]

The only consequece of NTFS is that it makes it harder to downgrade your OS to an older version. Other than that, NTFS is superior and will save you some HD space in the end.

 

[Rong]

THX.
I know that.
But I still need to format it in FAT32 in order that all files from before are working no problem at all.
Please kep helping me.

 

[waitman]

I have an 80 gig hd, formatted with fat 32, and a dual boot of win xp pro and win98se. Install win98 first then win xp. you have the option of formatting it with fat 32 or ntfs, but to use win98, it has to be formatted in fat 32

 

[hjo3]

Keep in mind that if you're using XP Pro, you won't be able to format any partition larger than 32 GB in FAT32, though you can mount partitions like that.

Why do you need to keep FAT32? Are you doing a dual-boot system like waitman?

Why wouldn't "files from before" work with NTFS? You could transfer them over to the new FS pretty easily, unless I'm missing something.

 

[Double Trouble]

There are several good reasons to keep using Fat32, even on a winxp system, I've found that out the hard way. Also, some older proggies refuse to work on NTFS but work fine on Fat32.

Anyway, XP will not format any drive larger than 32 GB as FAT32, it forces you to use NTFS v2. The way to do it is to make a windows 98 boot disk, then boot from the floppy, run fdisk, create a FAT32 partition, and then format the drive accordingly. Once you've done that, you can install XP on that drive, or use the drive with XP in any way you like.

Also, make sure you download the updated FDISK.EXE file (google for it). If you use the older one, it will not 'see' the size of the drive properly. You can still fdisk it, but it won't see the size correctly in the fdisk utility.

You can also use something like Partition Magic to do the trick for you.....